she covers foreign-policy for the network. she is one of the bust respected and we are delighted she is here. next to her is surely an jackson. she has 51 of honorary degrees. she has been the first of everything -- the national science foundation. she was the very first black woman to get a ph.d. at and i.t.. [applause] she is an expert in medicare and medicaid and all things health. she has been called the health czar of america. the point guard over hauling the system. how about that for a job? what a powerhouse right here. so we actually have a lot of brainpower up here. all of you could have done very different things. you had a lot of choices. i would love to hear about how you ended up taking what you did. who wants to start? >> a failed of violinist. i was raised to be a musician. my mother still asks may what happened. i was always interested in politics and writing stories for the paper. it actually was complete serendipity. i was in college and was at a meeting of the naacp. we had some big issues. this was the 1960